Lessons from a Rebellious Missionary

00:00:00.000 | We're going to begin this session by teaching you a new song.

00:00:06.360 | It's always wonderful to be here at Grace Community Church and to be here at the Shepherd

00:00:11.200 | Conference with so many friends.

00:00:13.880 | And we're going to lead you, we're going to accompany as you sing in this session before

00:00:18.720 | Austin Duncan comes and leads us.

00:00:21.120 | And this is a new song.

00:00:22.360 | This is actually possibly the reason we are here.

00:00:24.780 | Over the years, we're grateful for many reasons to be here, but one is the personal encouragement

00:00:30.900 | that John MacArthur was to myself, to Kristen, and even in raising four girls and many little

00:00:37.120 | cups of coffee and phone calls and texts over the years.

00:00:40.520 | And when he was, I think, when he was going into hospital a few months ago, I sent him

00:00:46.000 | this hymn that we had just finished called Christus Victor, and he asked us to come and

00:00:50.000 | do it this evening.

00:00:51.000 | So we're going to do it this evening, but we thought we'd use this moment now to teach

00:00:53.480 | it.

00:00:54.480 | And it's based on two of the hymns of the Bible, the first hymn of the Bible, and then

00:00:59.880 | it echoes one of the last hymns in Revelation as well.

00:01:02.560 | We called it Christus Victor.

00:01:03.560 | So I'm going to teach you the three little sections, and then we'll stand and sing it.

00:01:07.760 | So Kristen's going to sing the verse, verse one, here we go.

00:01:11.040 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:01:32.680 | us.

00:01:33.680 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:01:59.480 | us.

00:02:00.480 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our song, our show of salvation, now to the

00:02:06.600 | Lamb upon the throne.

00:02:07.600 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:02:08.600 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:02:09.600 | us.

00:02:10.600 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:02:11.600 | us.

00:02:12.600 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our song, our show of salvation, now to the

00:02:13.600 | Lamb upon the throne.

00:02:14.600 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:02:15.600 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:02:16.600 | us.

00:02:17.600 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our song, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb

00:02:18.600 | upon the throne.

00:02:19.600 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory, be blessing

00:02:41.280 | on our glory.

00:02:42.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:02:43.280 | us.

00:02:44.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our song, our show of salvation, now to the

00:02:45.280 | Lamb upon the throne.

00:02:46.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:02:47.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:02:48.280 | us.

00:02:49.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:02:50.280 | the throne.

00:02:51.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:02:52.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:02:53.280 | us.

00:02:54.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:02:55.280 | the throne.

00:02:56.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:02:57.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:02:58.280 | us.

00:02:59.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:03:00.280 | the throne.

00:03:01.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:03:02.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:03:03.280 | us.

00:03:04.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:03:27.280 | us.

00:03:29.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:03:30.280 | the throne.

00:03:31.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:03:32.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:03:33.280 | us.

00:03:34.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:03:35.280 | the throne.

00:03:36.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:03:37.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:03:38.280 | us.

00:03:39.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:03:40.280 | the throne.

00:03:41.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:03:42.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:03:43.280 | us.

00:03:44.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:04:03.280 | the throne.

00:04:26.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:04:37.280 | us.

00:04:38.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:04:39.280 | the throne.

00:04:40.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:04:41.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:04:42.280 | us.

00:04:43.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:04:44.280 | the throne.

00:04:45.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:04:46.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:04:47.280 | us.

00:04:48.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the throne.

00:04:49.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:04:50.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:04:51.280 | us.

00:04:52.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:04:53.280 | the throne.

00:04:54.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:04:55.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:04:56.280 | us.

00:04:57.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:04:58.280 | the throne.

00:04:59.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:05:00.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:05:01.280 | us.

00:05:02.280 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon the

00:05:03.280 | throne.

00:05:04.280 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:05:05.280 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:05:33.880 | us.

00:05:34.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:05:35.880 | the throne.

00:05:36.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:05:37.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:05:38.880 | us.

00:05:39.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:05:40.880 | the throne.

00:05:41.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:05:42.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:05:43.880 | us.

00:05:44.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:05:45.880 | the throne.

00:05:46.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:05:47.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:05:48.880 | us.

00:05:49.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:06:10.880 | the throne.

00:06:11.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:06:12.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:06:13.880 | us.

00:06:14.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:06:15.880 | the throne.

00:06:16.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:06:17.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:06:18.880 | us.

00:06:19.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:06:20.880 | the throne.

00:06:21.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:06:22.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:06:23.880 | us.

00:06:24.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:06:25.880 | the throne.

00:06:26.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:06:27.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:06:28.880 | us.

00:06:29.880 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:06:30.880 | the throne.

00:06:31.880 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:06:32.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:06:33.880 | us.

00:06:34.880 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:06:53.800 | us.

00:06:54.800 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:07:23.740 | us.

00:07:24.740 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:07:25.740 | the throne.

00:07:26.740 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:07:27.740 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:07:28.740 | us.

00:07:29.740 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:07:30.740 | the throne.

00:07:31.740 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:07:32.740 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:07:33.740 | us.

00:07:34.740 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:07:35.740 | the throne.

00:07:36.740 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:07:37.740 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:07:38.740 | us.

00:07:39.740 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:08:07.740 | the throne.

00:08:08.740 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:08:09.740 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:08:10.740 | us.

00:08:11.740 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:08:12.740 | the throne.

00:08:13.740 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:08:14.740 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:08:15.740 | us.

00:08:16.740 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:08:17.740 | the throne.

00:08:18.740 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:08:19.740 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:08:20.740 | us.

00:08:21.740 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:08:22.740 | the throne.

00:08:23.740 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:08:50.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:08:51.180 | us.

00:08:52.180 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:08:53.180 | the throne.

00:08:54.180 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:08:55.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:08:56.180 | us.

00:08:57.180 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:08:58.180 | the throne.

00:08:59.180 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:09:00.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:09:01.180 | us.

00:09:02.180 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:09:03.180 | the throne.

00:09:04.180 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:09:05.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:09:06.180 | us.

00:09:07.180 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:09:36.180 | the throne.

00:09:37.180 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:09:38.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:09:39.180 | us.

00:09:40.180 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:09:41.180 | the throne.

00:09:42.180 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:09:43.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:09:44.180 | us.

00:09:45.180 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:09:46.180 | the throne.

00:09:47.180 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:09:48.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:09:49.180 | us.

00:09:50.180 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:09:51.180 | the throne.

00:09:52.180 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:10:18.180 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:10:48.140 | us.

00:10:49.140 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:10:50.140 | the throne.

00:10:51.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:10:52.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:10:53.140 | us.

00:10:54.140 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:10:55.140 | the throne.

00:10:56.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:10:57.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:10:58.140 | us.

00:10:59.140 | Let us through mighty waters, our strength, our show of salvation, now to the Lamb upon

00:11:00.140 | the throne.

00:11:01.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:11:02.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:11:03.140 | us.

00:11:04.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:11:31.140 | us.

00:11:32.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:11:33.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:11:34.140 | us.

00:11:35.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:11:36.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:11:37.140 | us.

00:11:38.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:11:39.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:11:40.140 | us.

00:11:41.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:11:42.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:11:43.140 | us.

00:11:44.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:11:45.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:11:46.140 | us.

00:11:47.140 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:11:48.140 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:09.580 | us.

00:12:10.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:11.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:12.580 | us.

00:12:13.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:14.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:15.580 | us.

00:12:16.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:17.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:18.580 | us.

00:12:19.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:20.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:21.580 | us.

00:12:22.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:23.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:24.580 | us.

00:12:25.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:26.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:27.580 | us.

00:12:28.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:29.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:30.580 | us.

00:12:31.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:32.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:55.580 | us.

00:12:56.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:12:57.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:12:58.580 | us.

00:12:59.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:00.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:01.580 | us.

00:13:02.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:03.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:04.580 | us.

00:13:05.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:06.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:07.580 | us.

00:13:08.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:09.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:10.580 | us.

00:13:11.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:12.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:13.580 | us.

00:13:14.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:15.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:16.580 | us.

00:13:17.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:32.580 | us.

00:13:33.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:34.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:35.580 | us.

00:13:36.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:37.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:38.580 | us.

00:13:39.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:40.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:41.580 | us.

00:13:42.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:43.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:44.580 | us.

00:13:45.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:46.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:47.580 | us.

00:13:48.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:49.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:50.580 | us.

00:13:51.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:52.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:53.580 | us.

00:13:54.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:55.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:56.580 | us.

00:13:57.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:13:58.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:13:59.580 | us.

00:14:00.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:01.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:22.580 | us.

00:14:23.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:24.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:25.580 | us.

00:14:26.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:27.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:28.580 | us.

00:14:29.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:30.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:31.580 | us.

00:14:32.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:33.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:34.580 | us.

00:14:35.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:36.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:37.580 | us.

00:14:38.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:39.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:40.580 | us.

00:14:41.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:42.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:14:43.580 | us.

00:14:44.580 | Be blessing on our glory, be blessing on our glory.

00:14:45.580 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:15:10.020 | us.

00:15:11.020 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:15:35.780 | us.

00:15:36.780 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:16:00.980 | us.

00:16:01.980 | O most high King of the ages, great I am, God of wonders, by the blood you have redeemed

00:16:30.580 | us.

00:16:31.580 | ♪ No other, my soul is satisfied in Him alone ♪

00:16:36.580 | ♪ Two wonders here that I confess ♪

00:16:54.160 | ♪ My worth and my unworthiness ♪

00:17:00.980 | ♪ My value fixed, my ransom paid at the cross ♪

00:17:05.980 | ♪ And I rejoice in my Redeemer ♪

00:17:18.180 | ♪ Greatest treasure, wellspring of my soul ♪

00:17:23.480 | ♪ And I will trust in Him, no other, my soul alone ♪

00:17:30.520 | ♪ My soul is satisfied in Him alone ♪

00:17:35.520 | ♪ And I rejoice in my Redeemer ♪

00:17:42.420 | ♪ Greatest treasure, wellspring of my soul ♪

00:17:47.680 | ♪ And I will trust in Him, no other, my soul alone ♪

00:17:54.920 | ♪ My soul is satisfied in Him alone ♪

00:17:59.260 | (audience applauding)

00:18:15.500 | (audience applauding)

00:18:18.660 | - Thank you to the Gettys and John Martin

00:18:31.820 | for leading us so well this morning.

00:18:35.820 | What an absolute delight that was.

00:18:38.900 | I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Jonah.

00:18:45.300 | My assignment is to speak on Jonah,

00:18:50.060 | the reluctant missionary.

00:18:51.920 | And I would like to focus on Jonah chapter four.

00:18:58.300 | Jonah chapter four.

00:19:11.300 | Start reading to you in Jonah chapter four, verse one.

00:19:15.220 | "But it greatly distressed Jonah and he became angry.

00:19:27.340 | "And then he prayed to Yahweh and said,

00:19:37.160 | "Ah, Yahweh, was this not what I said

00:19:41.920 | "when I was still in my own country?

00:19:44.660 | "That's why I fled to Tarshish,

00:19:49.060 | "for I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God,

00:19:54.060 | "slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness,

00:20:01.720 | "and one who relents concerning evil."

00:20:08.080 | "So now, O Yahweh, please take my life from me,

00:20:13.080 | "for death is better to me than life.

00:20:20.940 | "But Yahweh said, 'Do you have good reason to be angry?'"

00:20:32.240 | Now Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city.

00:20:37.240 | He made a shelter for himself there and sat in its shade

00:20:42.240 | until he could see what would happen to the city.

00:20:46.480 | Then Yahweh God appointed a plant

00:20:51.600 | and made it grow up over Jonah to be a shade over his head

00:20:55.960 | to deliver him from his distress.

00:20:58.800 | And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant.

00:21:03.660 | Then God appointed a worm when dawn came up the next day,

00:21:10.720 | and it attacked the plant, and it withered.

00:21:16.660 | And when the sun rose, God appointed a biting east wind,

00:21:23.480 | and the sun beat down on Jonah's head,

00:21:27.380 | and he became faint and asked to die,

00:21:31.120 | saying, "It's better for me to die than to live."

00:21:34.400 | And then God said to Jonah,

00:21:38.220 | "Are you rightly angry, burned up over the plant?"

00:21:42.960 | And he said, "Rightly, I'm so burned up I could die."

00:21:49.720 | And then Yahweh said, "You have had pity over the plant,

00:21:57.740 | "though you did not toil over it or make it grow.

00:22:02.740 | "It came up in a night and perished in a night.

00:22:07.760 | "And should I not have compassion on Nineveh,

00:22:14.300 | "the great city in which there are more than

00:22:18.380 | "120,000 persons who do not know the difference

00:22:23.940 | "between their right and left hand, as well as many cattle?"

00:22:28.940 | So reads the word of the living God.

00:22:35.980 | Father, help us to recognize in this prophecy

00:22:42.780 | all that you have prepared for us and for our hearts.

00:22:49.780 | We are blessed ministers to be gathered here

00:22:53.580 | under the authority of your word.

00:22:55.660 | Do the work that only your spirit can do

00:23:00.380 | through your word in our hearts

00:23:03.460 | to make us share in the very heart of our God.

00:23:08.460 | I ask this in Jesus' matchless name, amen.

00:23:14.860 | When my kids were little,

00:23:20.100 | they're high school, college age now,

00:23:21.660 | but when they were little, we had eight books on Jonah.

00:23:25.500 | When they were infants,

00:23:28.820 | we had the puffy books that you could chew on.

00:23:31.460 | Their favorite was called Whale's Big Catch.

00:23:38.220 | And I'm here to confess my failure as a father,

00:23:42.360 | because as I paged through it

00:23:43.860 | in preparation for this message,

00:23:46.020 | [audience laughing]

00:23:50.740 | I realized it lacked some theological accuracy.

00:23:55.740 | [audience laughing]

00:23:59.900 | It's a book consumed with what most children's books

00:24:04.900 | about Jonah are interested in,

00:24:07.280 | which is the subterranean predicament

00:24:10.420 | that Jonah finds himself in the belly of the great fish.

00:24:15.180 | It's full of cartoon illustrations

00:24:18.660 | and onomatopoeia like Splish Splash and Pew Stink.

00:24:23.660 | My favorite page has Jonah's thought bubble,

00:24:30.380 | and he's picturing all the people of Nineveh,

00:24:33.060 | including a really angry-looking evil baby in his mind.

00:24:38.060 | But it's not just those who try to accommodate

00:24:44.420 | the message of Jonah to the youngest among us

00:24:47.380 | who miss its point.

00:24:49.500 | The great American novelist Herman Melville

00:24:53.860 | puts these words on the tongue of Father Mapple,

00:24:58.180 | the chaplain of the ship in Moby Dick.

00:25:01.780 | His sermon in, I think, chapter 19 goes like this,

00:25:05.820 | ninth chapter.

00:25:07.460 | The book containing only four chapters, four yarns,

00:25:10.860 | the book of Jonah is one of the smallest strands

00:25:13.320 | in the mighty cable of the scriptures.

00:25:15.940 | Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sea line sound?

00:25:20.940 | What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet.

00:25:24.540 | What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly.

00:25:28.340 | How billow-like and boisterously grand.

00:25:31.640 | We feel the flood surging over us.

00:25:34.400 | We sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters.

00:25:38.020 | Seaweed and all the slime of the sea is about us.

00:25:41.780 | But what is the lesson that the book of Jonah

00:25:43.940 | teaches shipmates?

00:25:46.700 | It's a two-stranded lesson.

00:25:49.020 | A lesson to all of us as sinful men.

00:25:51.660 | A lesson to me as a pilot of the living God

00:25:54.220 | as a sinful man.

00:25:56.080 | It's a lesson to all of us because it's the story

00:25:58.700 | of the sin-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears,

00:26:03.340 | the swift punishment, repentant prayers,

00:26:06.820 | and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah.

00:26:11.940 | I don't think Melville read the last chapter.

00:26:14.340 | A little book, it's only 48 verses long,

00:26:19.820 | it tells a story of what happens in the 8th century BC.

00:26:24.820 | But I find in it, the more I think about

00:26:27.740 | this reluctant prophet,

00:26:30.740 | some sad similarities to the low state

00:26:35.940 | of my own heart at times.

00:26:38.820 | I find it fascinating that in the synagogue calendar,

00:26:43.460 | as the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures

00:26:45.940 | were read in the synagogues in the synagogue period,

00:26:48.720 | according to the liturgy and the calendar,

00:26:52.260 | it was on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement,

00:26:55.220 | that they would read the book of Jonah aloud

00:26:58.460 | and the people would traditionally respond,

00:27:01.580 | we are Jonah.

00:27:04.040 | And I wonder if we're there.

00:27:08.060 | Because we read this and we laugh

00:27:10.520 | at this pouting prophet,

00:27:13.300 | at how outrageous it is that he's angry with God,

00:27:18.020 | how foul he is after experiencing

00:27:22.460 | the incredible commissioning at the beginning of the book

00:27:27.020 | to go to a people that were not his own

00:27:30.500 | in a period of Israel's sinful idolatry

00:27:34.460 | and to go minister in a place that was bloodthirsty

00:27:38.020 | and violent and Jonah's white knuckled defiance

00:27:43.020 | is shocking to us as he goes the opposite way

00:27:48.380 | that God asks him to go and then becomes

00:27:52.020 | a coincidental missionary to some pagan sailors

00:27:56.180 | who are eager to hear about Yahweh.

00:27:59.580 | Their response is heartfelt and genuine

00:28:03.120 | as they cry out to the covenant God by name

00:28:06.020 | in chapter one, verse 14, oh Lord,

00:28:08.340 | do not let us perish on account of this man's life

00:28:11.300 | and do not put innocent blood on us

00:28:13.060 | for thou, oh Yahweh, hast done as thou hast pleased.

00:28:17.420 | I mean, Jonah's ministry is remarkable in its fruitfulness.

00:28:24.900 | The Mishnah says that these men, after dropping off Jonah,

00:28:33.280 | went straight to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices

00:28:37.700 | and probably have a painful surgery.

00:28:40.200 | (congregation laughing)

00:28:43.540 | I mean, Jonah's picking up incidental converts

00:28:49.080 | and his attitude is so bad he demands death,

00:28:53.680 | not just in chapter four but in chapter two.

00:28:56.000 | But as he comes to his senses

00:29:01.880 | and announces the reality of God's salvation

00:29:06.280 | from the belly of the great fish,

00:29:09.800 | chapter two, verse nine, I will sacrifice to thee

00:29:12.500 | with the voice of thanksgiving that which I have vowed

00:29:15.360 | I will pay, salvation is from the Lord,

00:29:19.640 | we start to get closer and closer to the message of Jonah

00:29:25.640 | and how it ought to resonate in our own hearts

00:29:28.560 | if we can focus on the right thing.

00:29:31.460 | But then something so grand and spectacular happens.

00:29:34.800 | In five Hebrew words, Jonah fulfills his commission

00:29:40.520 | and preaches to Nineveh and Nineveh responds

00:29:45.520 | and turns, the Hebrew word shub, to turn, to repent,

00:29:51.400 | is used over and over again in this chapter

00:29:53.920 | and God turns, verse 10, is in a way

00:29:57.960 | completely unique to God.

00:29:59.360 | When God saw their deeds that they turned from their wicked

00:30:01.700 | way then God turned and concerning the calamity

00:30:05.260 | he had declared he would bring upon them

00:30:07.020 | and he did not do it.

00:30:09.060 | Their repentance was so thorough going

00:30:11.060 | even their animals repented.

00:30:13.160 | Sackcloth and ashes for everybody, the king, the poor.

00:30:19.180 | And that seems a good place to end the book of Jonah.

00:30:23.980 | But if we ended there we would be stuck

00:30:27.980 | with the children's book and stuck with Moby Dick

00:30:31.660 | because we wouldn't get to the focus,

00:30:36.660 | the purpose, the message of the book of Jonah

00:30:42.180 | which is found in chapter four.

00:30:44.920 | A book of defiance and deliverance,

00:30:47.940 | a defiant prophet who flees the presence of God

00:30:51.500 | and prefers death over obedience.

00:30:54.020 | A great fish swallowing him, Yahweh rescuing him

00:30:57.180 | and vomiting him out into the shore.

00:30:59.660 | Jonah's remarkable psalm from the depths of the sea

00:31:04.440 | crying out to proclaim the salvation of God,

00:31:08.120 | the redeployment of Jonah on this great Assyrian capital,

00:31:12.640 | the incredible revival in Nineveh

00:31:15.060 | where these bloodthirsty and pagan people

00:31:16.860 | cry out to the covenant God of Israel

00:31:19.060 | and he turns his wrath away and grants them repentance.

00:31:22.200 | We start to realize as we look to chapter four

00:31:26.060 | this isn't a fish story, this isn't a parable of some kind

00:31:30.140 | or some morals to take away,

00:31:32.380 | what are the whales in your life, brothers?

00:31:34.720 | But instead this is a theological book,

00:31:40.580 | a book that is not centered on a fish or on a man,

00:31:44.880 | a book that tells us what God is like

00:31:47.900 | and we need the message of Jonah

00:31:51.460 | and there's no better place to find it

00:31:54.220 | than in this fourth chapter.

00:31:55.900 | As the entire prophecy is brought into a summary

00:32:00.380 | in an unguessable way and it exposes the wisdom of God

00:32:04.540 | and his plan in putting all this together

00:32:06.840 | and seeing Jonah's stubbornness and recalcitrance

00:32:10.820 | at the end and the hard heart

00:32:12.580 | leaves us as readers scratching our heads

00:32:15.540 | and confused about how we're to respond to this message

00:32:20.420 | but if we pay careful attention,

00:32:23.060 | especially to this chapter,

00:32:25.580 | the very word of the living God,

00:32:27.500 | we can see why it's such an important message

00:32:31.420 | to learn about this oddball prophet

00:32:34.380 | and recognize in ourselves similar deficiencies,

00:32:38.380 | similar defiance but make sure our focus is on God

00:32:43.380 | and his heart of compassion.

00:32:46.300 | What a book, what a chapter.

00:32:52.260 | It ends with a question,

00:32:53.940 | a question that just sits there with no resolution.

00:32:59.860 | As the centuries passed, Jewish scholarship

00:33:05.020 | added all kinds of annotations to the end,

00:33:08.700 | dissatisfied with this lingering question

00:33:12.960 | and trying to bring resolution

00:33:15.060 | either with Jonah sticking to his rebellious position

00:33:19.620 | and disposition or Jonah relenting

00:33:22.260 | and buying into the logic that God is offering him

00:33:25.700 | but that's not what Jonah 4, 11 does.

00:33:30.700 | It leaves us with a question

00:33:34.260 | and it's not having us meditate on the ship of sailors

00:33:40.660 | or a city of sinners or even a defiant prophet.

00:33:43.500 | It's about the character of God.

00:33:47.460 | The main concern of this book is brought into focus,

00:33:49.620 | a God whose compassion, the key word of chapter four,

00:33:54.420 | is put on magnificent display.

00:33:57.280 | A God whose mercy is incomprehensible

00:33:59.940 | in its depth and breadth.

00:34:01.680 | Jim Boyce titled this chapter,

00:34:03.980 | "A God More Compassionate Than His Prophets"

00:34:08.620 | and to study Jonah chapter four as a minister

00:34:12.180 | and as a missionary, as a pastor,

00:34:15.940 | is to look at a careful study in God's compassion.

00:34:19.260 | So let's look at chapter four

00:34:20.560 | as it unfolds in these three scenes.

00:34:23.500 | Let's start, number one, with the confrontation

00:34:26.660 | with God's character.

00:34:28.860 | A confrontation with God's character

00:34:30.820 | in verses one through three

00:34:32.040 | and then verses four through nine,

00:34:33.640 | a conversation in God's classroom

00:34:37.420 | and then third and finally, a challenge in God's question,

00:34:42.420 | verse 10 and 11.

00:34:44.820 | Let's look at these piece by piece.

00:34:47.420 | Remember how this opens, chapter three, verse 10.

00:34:52.300 | When God saw their deeds

00:34:53.380 | that they turned from their wicked way,

00:34:55.660 | he relented concerning the calamity

00:34:57.540 | which he had declared and would bring upon them

00:34:59.560 | and he did not do it.

00:35:01.820 | Verse one, but it greatly displeased Jonah.

00:35:08.240 | Literally, it was a great evil to Jonah.

00:35:12.140 | This has a Hebrew wordplay in this chapter

00:35:15.140 | between the word evil, rah, and the word good, tob.

00:35:19.500 | And it brings this concept of evil right into focus

00:35:23.280 | and it's not necessarily a moral evil

00:35:26.020 | in the assessment of Jonah,

00:35:27.620 | but instead, the word evil means a massive disaster,

00:35:31.620 | incredible distress, a bad situation.

00:35:36.300 | And Jonah, in his prophecy,

00:35:40.740 | we've already seen lots of evil,

00:35:44.180 | mainly Nineveh categorized this way.

00:35:47.560 | But now Jonah directs his great displeasure

00:35:53.420 | and his assessment of the repentance of this pagan city

00:35:56.620 | as a total disaster.

00:35:59.920 | It was evil to Jonah, a great evil, and it burned to him.

00:36:04.920 | Verse one.

00:36:08.900 | Combining that other theme in the book of Jonah,

00:36:10.720 | that word great.

00:36:12.000 | Nineveh's been called great, the storm is great,

00:36:16.740 | the fish is great, the wind is great,

00:36:20.300 | and now the disaster in Jonah's assessment

00:36:23.900 | can only be described as massive, as great.

00:36:27.060 | The city has turned from their wicked ways

00:36:32.260 | and now God has relented from his judgment.

00:36:37.480 | And this great fish is now followed by a great evil

00:36:42.480 | because of the repentance of this great city.

00:36:50.200 | And Jonah is concerned about the very character of God.

00:36:55.420 | His assessment of the outcome of his ministry

00:36:59.600 | is it's all a disaster.

00:37:02.440 | In the opening scene of the book,

00:37:05.760 | you have a prophet arguing against God's mercy.

00:37:09.080 | A prophet of Yahweh opposed to Yahweh's compassion.

00:37:11.760 | He has a problem here in chapter four with God's character

00:37:15.440 | and it's easy to punch on Jonah.

00:37:18.980 | Please note verse two, it says he prayed to Yahweh and said,

00:37:25.760 | and before we're too hard on Jonah,

00:37:30.440 | at least Jonah took his theological problem

00:37:35.120 | to the right place.

00:37:36.400 | Too many pastors wrongly angry with God.

00:37:42.720 | There's nothing excusable about Jonah's anger towards God.

00:37:47.940 | Too many pastors have abandoned their posts

00:37:51.840 | and abandoned their prayers

00:37:55.040 | instead of bringing their sinful problem to God.

00:37:58.960 | In that way, Jonah is commendable here,

00:38:04.320 | at least in part because he knows where to take his troubles

00:38:09.320 | and if you've ever experienced difficulty in the ministry

00:38:13.880 | and if you've been a pastor for more than 15 seconds,

00:38:16.580 | you have.

00:38:17.600 | If you've ever studied a text

00:38:24.800 | and wrestled with a theological problem

00:38:27.680 | about the character and nature of God,

00:38:33.160 | if you've lived in a fallen world,

00:38:35.280 | you've encountered these things that bring us

00:38:41.000 | to a place of theological and practical perplexity

00:38:44.160 | and to deal with them before God is what's commendable

00:38:50.280 | in Jonah's moment of sinful anger here.

00:38:53.920 | Though he ascribes great evil to the decision God has made

00:38:56.520 | to grant the Ninevites repentance,

00:38:58.340 | at least he takes his problem to God.

00:39:02.240 | He prays to Yahweh

00:39:03.360 | and though he's sulky and bad-tempered,

00:39:07.660 | at least his irritation and annoyance drives him to pray.

00:39:12.360 | Does yours?

00:39:15.240 | Or do you take it out on the precious people

00:39:18.720 | that God has saved?

00:39:19.960 | When we're in trouble,

00:39:25.160 | when we've encountered difficulty in ministry,

00:39:28.520 | it's our first instinct to bring our troubles

00:39:32.440 | in honesty and transparency

00:39:36.360 | to the throne room of heaven.

00:39:39.380 | Verse two helps me and points me to where I need to go

00:39:47.640 | when my thinking is not right.

00:39:50.600 | Take it to God, brothers.

00:39:52.200 | It's not clear why Jonah is angry specifically

00:39:57.720 | and exactly.

00:39:59.120 | Commentators speculate why Jonah is angry with God.

00:40:02.180 | Is he specifically angry because God spared Nineveh?

00:40:05.920 | Opinions are various.

00:40:07.640 | Some consider Jonah to be a straight-up racist.

00:40:11.440 | He has narrow exclusivism.

00:40:14.160 | Calvin said it's because Jonah didn't wanna appear

00:40:16.180 | as a false prophet.

00:40:17.540 | Some say there's political motivation

00:40:19.360 | because of Israel's enemies were being spared

00:40:22.460 | and what that entailed for the people,

00:40:24.720 | the covenant people of God.

00:40:25.880 | Some say that Jonah didn't buy the Ninevites' repentance

00:40:28.840 | as genuine.

00:40:30.440 | Some question it because of a subsequent generation

00:40:34.800 | of Ninevites were judged by God.

00:40:37.560 | Assyrians would fall under God's wrath,

00:40:42.840 | but it wasn't the same Ninevites.

00:40:44.240 | It was a different generation, a different prophecy.

00:40:46.840 | My reading of chapter three, I think,

00:40:49.800 | is national repentance,

00:40:52.680 | and though it was perfunctory and generational,

00:40:55.200 | I think it was genuine.

00:40:56.480 | At this point in the story,

00:40:59.360 | the Ninevites are genuinely repentant,

00:41:01.160 | and so Jonah, whether he bought into it or not,

00:41:03.240 | I don't think that's the main reason for his anger.

00:41:06.520 | Some say it's Jonah's nationalism

00:41:08.200 | because he believed that idolaters deserve judgment

00:41:10.840 | or the relationship between Amos and Hosea

00:41:13.160 | because Amos and Hosea were the prophets

00:41:14.880 | that would denounce Nineveh eventually

00:41:16.740 | in a later subsequent time,

00:41:18.040 | or perhaps it was because Jonah hopes

00:41:19.940 | that judgments on Nineveh might bring true repentance

00:41:22.580 | on an idolatrous Israel.

00:41:25.420 | But we don't know the reason specifically

00:41:27.280 | behind Jonah's anger except what we're told,

00:41:30.460 | and we're told that Jonah is angry

00:41:32.260 | because God has been merciful to Nineveh.

00:41:34.620 | John McHugh says Jonah did not like God's way of being God.

00:41:41.500 | Davis says God is acting in a way

00:41:47.300 | that Jonah did not approve of.

00:41:52.500 | And I think these brothers are helping us

00:41:54.200 | keep our focus on the text and what it actually says

00:41:58.380 | rather than conjecture here

00:42:00.180 | and what might or might not be going on behind the scenes.

00:42:03.160 | And when we do, we see something of tremendous value

00:42:06.340 | start to unfold in verse two towards the second half.

00:42:09.460 | There is this meaty confessional or creedal statement.

00:42:13.900 | "In order to forestall this," Jonah says,

00:42:17.780 | "I fled to Tarshish, for I knew,"

00:42:21.660 | here's Jonah's theological, logical response

00:42:25.580 | to God's mercy in Nineveh.

00:42:27.440 | "For I knew," this is spectacular,

00:42:31.180 | "that you are a gracious and compassionate God,

00:42:39.440 | "slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness

00:42:45.640 | "and one who relents concerning evil."

00:42:50.640 | And those words are so familiar to us,

00:42:55.640 | familiar to every follower of God

00:42:58.480 | because that is the basis of the statement of faith

00:43:03.480 | of the people of Israel.

00:43:05.460 | In Numbers 14, it says,

00:43:07.740 | "The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,

00:43:10.700 | "forgiving iniquity and transgressions,

00:43:12.720 | "but he will by no means clear the guilty,

00:43:14.840 | "visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children

00:43:17.260 | "to the third and fourth generation.

00:43:19.660 | "Please pardon the iniquity of the people

00:43:21.420 | "according to the greatness of your steadfast love,

00:43:24.140 | "just as you've forgiven the people from Egypt until now."

00:43:28.140 | This theological content is all over the Old Testament.

00:43:35.120 | You go to the Psalm, Psalm 86,

00:43:37.280 | it says, "Be gracious to me, O Lord,

00:43:40.060 | "for to you do I cry all the day,

00:43:42.720 | "glad in the soul of your servant,

00:43:44.400 | "for to you, O Lord, do not lift up my soul,

00:43:47.000 | "for you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,

00:43:49.420 | "abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

00:43:52.720 | "Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer,

00:43:54.740 | "listen to my plea for grace.

00:43:56.320 | "In the day of my trouble, I call upon you to answer me.

00:43:59.840 | "There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,

00:44:02.360 | "nor are there any works like yours,

00:44:04.360 | "but you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,

00:44:08.960 | "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love

00:44:13.000 | "and faithfulness."

00:44:14.720 | Psalm 86, 15.

00:44:17.300 | Throughout the Old Testament,

00:44:18.640 | God is praised for these same attributes.

00:44:22.280 | In Nehemiah, towards the end of the Old Testament,

00:44:24.800 | chapter nine, verse 17,

00:44:26.040 | "In the moment of Israelites' national confession,

00:44:28.500 | "if they're brought back into their decimated land

00:44:30.560 | "with a broken temple, they speak these words.

00:44:33.260 | "They refuse to obey, were not mindful of the wonders

00:44:36.960 | "you performed among them,

00:44:37.980 | "confessing the sins of their forebears.

00:44:40.860 | "They stiffen their neck and appointed a leader

00:44:42.860 | "to return to the slavery in Egypt,

00:44:44.840 | "but you are a God ready to forgive,

00:44:47.860 | "gracious and merciful, slow to anger

00:44:51.340 | "and abounding in steadfast love and did not forsake them."

00:44:55.300 | Later in the book of Nehemiah, at the end of the same prayer,

00:45:00.400 | what do the people say in their contrition?

00:45:02.720 | Well, they talk about God in the exact same language.

00:45:05.500 | "Nevertheless, in your great mercy,"

00:45:07.960 | Nehemiah 9, 31 and 32.

00:45:09.900 | "Nevertheless, in your great mercies,

00:45:11.700 | "did you not make an end of them or forsake them,

00:45:14.880 | "for you are a gracious and merciful God.

00:45:18.140 | "Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty,

00:45:20.280 | "the awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love,

00:45:23.740 | "let all the hardship seem little to you

00:45:26.580 | "that has come upon us, upon our kings,

00:45:28.800 | "our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers,

00:45:31.420 | "all your people since the time of the kings of Assyria

00:45:34.540 | "until this day."

00:45:35.800 | Or Psalm 116, five, "Gracious is the Lord and righteous.

00:45:40.680 | "Our Lord is merciful."

00:45:42.140 | Joel 2, 13, "Wren your hearts, not your garments.

00:45:46.280 | "Return to Yahweh your God, for He is gracious and merciful,

00:45:50.320 | "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,

00:45:54.120 | "and He relents over disaster."

00:45:56.720 | It's everywhere.

00:46:01.560 | And all of it derives throughout the Old Testament.

00:46:08.280 | I gave you six or eight examples.

00:46:10.360 | But it's pretty clear that this is the very heart

00:46:13.960 | of Israelite theology.

00:46:15.540 | Something that's the very foundation

00:46:18.160 | of all biblical theology about the nature of God.

00:46:21.640 | And every one of these psalmists or kings or leaders

00:46:25.440 | or deliverers or builders or prophets or poets or people

00:46:29.040 | are all drawing on this same concept.

00:46:30.920 | All of it comes from the same place.

00:46:32.760 | It's God's revelation of Himself in Exodus 34.

00:46:37.360 | I mean, look at it briefly with me.

00:46:39.160 | Exodus 34.

00:46:41.640 | I know it's familiar to us, but that might be the problem.

00:46:49.720 | Verse six, because it was certainly familiar

00:46:57.960 | to Jonah, wasn't it?

00:46:59.100 | Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed,

00:47:04.940 | it's Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious,

00:47:08.380 | slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love

00:47:10.860 | and faithfulness.

00:47:12.500 | Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger,

00:47:15.700 | abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

00:47:17.400 | keeping steadfast love for thousands,

00:47:19.300 | forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,

00:47:22.260 | but who will by no means clear the guilty,

00:47:24.820 | visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children,

00:47:27.140 | the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

00:47:30.380 | And Moses quickly bowed his head

00:47:31.980 | towards the earth and worshiped.

00:47:34.660 | And here's what's amazing about this foundational treatment

00:47:37.200 | of the character of God.

00:47:38.580 | The context is idolatry.

00:47:44.860 | Isn't that what Exodus 32 is all about?

00:47:50.460 | Moses finds the people in their sin

00:47:54.500 | and it's in response to their sin

00:47:57.220 | that God reveals Himself to Moses and to the people.

00:48:03.700 | Everyone's a theologian.

00:48:05.100 | And this text reminds us that there's a difference

00:48:10.100 | between what we confess and what we actually believe.

00:48:14.100 | To be able to articulate the heart of God

00:48:18.820 | in its revelation of Himself in biblical theology,

00:48:23.820 | but to not be able to embrace that truth

00:48:27.940 | is what's making Jonah so uneasy.

00:48:33.440 | Jonah's doctrine is correct.

00:48:35.600 | His theology is impeccable,

00:48:37.920 | but he doesn't like where this is leaving him.

00:48:42.260 | He's not content with the character of God.

00:48:46.240 | Ellison writes this, "What is clear is that Jonah

00:48:49.480 | "was finding fault with God as He really is,

00:48:52.960 | "not as He imagined Him to be."

00:48:54.760 | And that's a common problem.

00:48:57.540 | Lots of people say wrongly,

00:48:59.640 | "Well, I think God is like this."

00:49:02.320 | Well, God would never do that

00:49:03.560 | because I think God is like this.

00:49:07.120 | That's not what Jonah's doing.

00:49:08.600 | Jonah's a Calvinist.

00:49:11.640 | (congregation laughing)

00:49:14.800 | He knows his stuff,

00:49:15.960 | but he's not living it.

00:49:19.400 | The problem was Jonah had not yet adjusted his perspective

00:49:24.400 | to match God's perspective.

00:49:26.820 | You see, Jonah understood that God was merciful

00:49:30.680 | because God had said He was merciful,

00:49:33.640 | but Jonah had grown hard-hearted and resented God's mercy.

00:49:37.120 | And this is particularly ironic

00:49:39.740 | because Jonah had just been the recipient of God's mercy.

00:49:43.360 | But that's not as hard as we think.

00:49:46.760 | We live in an evil and fallen world, brothers,

00:49:51.340 | and we are becoming increasingly aware

00:49:54.720 | of the need for the justice of God.

00:49:58.840 | And we see confusion on every level of society

00:50:02.400 | and idolatry and wickedness and rebellion

00:50:05.520 | against the very elemental aspects

00:50:10.280 | of creation and God's design.

00:50:12.820 | Shocking miscarriages of justice,

00:50:20.120 | a general disdain of righteousness,

00:50:25.040 | a promotion of violence and evil.

00:50:28.320 | And it might be mindful for us to make sure

00:50:32.160 | that we're not more aware of God's judgment

00:50:34.320 | than God's mercy.

00:50:35.400 | And this is what it comes down to

00:50:38.600 | is theology has to affect you.

00:50:42.080 | It must be experiential.

00:50:44.800 | You must believe what God says about Himself,

00:50:47.240 | but not just believe it, but embrace it.

00:50:50.840 | To affirm mercy is one thing.

00:50:53.360 | To embrace mercy is another thing altogether.

00:50:58.260 | But maybe that's not the issue

00:51:00.700 | because you have a heart for lost people.

00:51:04.000 | But I want you to think about the outworking

00:51:07.540 | of the sovereignty of God,

00:51:09.940 | not from a doctrinal perspective,

00:51:11.820 | but from a wisdom perspective.

00:51:14.200 | Maybe the injustice on the television screen

00:51:19.020 | isn't bothering you because you know

00:51:21.820 | that God will set it all right,

00:51:23.380 | but what about when the injustice involves you,

00:51:26.860 | brother pastor?

00:51:27.820 | Have you been maligned?

00:51:30.420 | Have you been mistreated?

00:51:33.540 | Spoken ill of?

00:51:35.740 | Falsely accused?

00:51:38.140 | How many Mondays have you thought,

00:51:40.940 | "Please throw me overboard"?

00:51:42.560 | Have you ever been on the brink of recapitulation, pastor?

00:51:50.140 | And you wondered, "God, why are you doing this?

00:51:55.900 | "I know what you're like,

00:51:57.860 | "but I don't like what you're doing in my life,

00:52:01.060 | "in our church, in this ministry."

00:52:04.440 | We can be very Jonah-like.

00:52:09.620 | The trouble with Jonah continues in verse three.

00:52:13.900 | His request is, yet again, he wants out.

00:52:17.820 | He knows he can't run anymore,

00:52:19.020 | so he just says, "God,"

00:52:21.180 | he actually is speaking to his own soul.

00:52:23.140 | In the Hebrew, he says, "Soul, die."

00:52:26.020 | Just die.

00:52:30.220 | He wants to be put out to pasture.

00:52:33.380 | He wants to be given his pink slip.

00:52:35.380 | He's not interested in a severance package.

00:52:37.460 | He just wants to quit.

00:52:38.560 | He wants Doge to come get rid of him.

00:52:42.840 | (congregation laughing)

00:52:46.460 | He wants out of the prophetic business altogether.

00:52:49.380 | It didn't work out for him.

00:52:50.820 | He's spoiled now in his service to God.

00:52:53.500 | He's done with grace.

00:52:54.680 | He's done with compassion.

00:52:56.020 | He's done with mercy.

00:52:57.580 | The compassion of God has ruined Jonah's ministry,

00:53:01.100 | and Jonah wants out.

00:53:03.260 | Calvin here calls Jonah's request monstrous.

00:53:07.820 | But how many ministers haven't felt this same weariness?

00:53:14.540 | The Apostle Paul knew we would feel this way

00:53:19.140 | when he penned to the Galatians.

00:53:20.860 | "Don't grow weary in well-doing.

00:53:24.020 | "In the proper time, you'll receive your harvest."

00:53:27.100 | God is more gracious than we are.

00:53:31.340 | God is more compassionate than we are.

00:53:33.000 | God is more pursuing than we are.

00:53:34.960 | God is more loving than we are,

00:53:36.740 | and Jonah thinks God has gone too far in his mercy,

00:53:39.900 | and if only Jonah could see us here,

00:53:43.020 | bunch of Gentiles eating snacks all week

00:53:45.780 | with unwashed hands.

00:53:47.380 | (congregation laughing)

00:53:50.800 | Gathered here, worshiping with very little regulations.

00:53:57.300 | Goyim.

00:54:02.100 | Jonah has no idea how far this would go.

00:54:07.120 | It started with Nineveh.

00:54:09.020 | It didn't actually start there.

00:54:10.740 | It started with Rahab, and Rahab,

00:54:13.140 | and then all over the place.

00:54:14.180 | There's a widow in Zarephath

00:54:15.860 | that gets her son resurrected,

00:54:17.300 | a leader of a pagan army named Nahum

00:54:19.500 | who's gonna be converted.

00:54:20.820 | There's all these moments.

00:54:22.140 | A Moabitess comes in, and not just into God's family,

00:54:25.180 | right into the Messianic line.

00:54:27.020 | Joel's gonna prophesy about it,

00:54:30.420 | and then at Pentecost, the walls and the borders

00:54:32.940 | are all gonna break down,

00:54:34.100 | and God's gonna save all kinds of people

00:54:36.220 | that are disagreeable.

00:54:37.340 | People that are different than you,

00:54:41.060 | look different than you, talk different than you,

00:54:42.740 | come from 10,000 different cultures and areas,

00:54:45.220 | speak different languages,

00:54:46.740 | because that's what God's mercy looks like.

00:54:50.300 | It looks like God saving all kinds of people, bad people,

00:54:55.300 | because it's the only kind that needs saving.

00:54:57.940 | This is what God's mercy looks like.

00:55:05.460 | God's gonna save people that you don't like,

00:55:10.720 | and people that don't like you, Pastor.

00:55:15.220 | Amen.

00:55:16.660 | And God is more gracious, more compassionate,

00:55:18.700 | more pursuing, more loving,

00:55:20.080 | and he will go too far in his mercy.

00:55:23.040 | What about you?

00:55:25.240 | Do you underestimate the mercy of God as your default,

00:55:29.040 | seeing justice rather than grace?

00:55:32.820 | Because knowing sound theology isn't enough.

00:55:36.160 | You have to embrace it and live it

00:55:39.120 | and get your heart like God's heart.

00:55:42.220 | That's the outworking.

00:55:43.780 | Jonah would have poured out a bowl of wrath on that city.

00:55:47.860 | He would have delighted in God treating them that way,

00:55:51.020 | but God poured forth mercy,

00:55:53.100 | and right theology has to be mingled with a soft heart.

00:55:56.740 | And what's so beautiful about this

00:55:59.760 | as we move into verses four through nine

00:56:01.580 | is there's a conversation in God's classroom.

00:56:05.220 | God is going to do work on Jonah.

00:56:08.220 | He's gonna take him to school.

00:56:09.620 | He's got a tutorial, an object lesson,

00:56:11.840 | a one-on-one instructive parable of sorts,

00:56:14.380 | a little biblical counseling with props.

00:56:17.700 | He's gonna put Jonah in a hut.

00:56:19.460 | He's gonna homeschool him, hutschool him.

00:56:22.580 | And that's scene two, a conversation in God's classroom.

00:56:27.660 | Verse four, the Lord said,

00:56:29.420 | and if this isn't the grace of God, what is?

00:56:32.100 | He engages Jonah in a conversation at this point.

00:56:35.260 | That's incredible.

00:56:40.900 | I mean, he could have just sent a big worm, just, oop.

00:56:43.600 | But instead, he has a conversation

00:56:51.520 | with Jonah in his classroom.

00:56:53.400 | Verse four, the Lord said,

00:56:54.600 | Yahweh said, do you have good reason to be angry?

00:56:57.540 | This passage is framed with verse nine

00:57:00.440 | asking the same question.

00:57:01.960 | The object lesson that he teaches him is so clear here.

00:57:05.200 | Verse nine of chapter four says,

00:57:06.480 | God said to Jonah, do you have good reason

00:57:08.640 | to be angry about the plant?

00:57:10.140 | The object lesson that God demonstrates

00:57:12.880 | in his classroom for his prophet

00:57:14.840 | is framed by God's questions about the anger of Jonah.

00:57:18.040 | God's first response to Jonah,

00:57:19.940 | do you have good reason to be angry?

00:57:21.560 | The NAS says, ESV, do you do well to be angry?

00:57:25.160 | NLT, is it right for you to be angry?

00:57:27.160 | Do you have any right to be angry?

00:57:29.080 | Hebrew, rightly does it burn you?

00:57:32.520 | What a question, Ellison suggests this translation.

00:57:36.040 | Are you sure you gauged the situation accurately?

00:57:39.820 | Yes.

00:57:40.660 | How else can you describe a question?

00:57:43.860 | It's a further evidence of God's great compassion

00:57:47.060 | now directed towards his prophet once again,

00:57:51.000 | proving what Jonah knew to be true about God,

00:57:55.220 | that God is gracious, that God is compassionate,

00:57:58.980 | that he is slow to anger, that he's abundant

00:58:01.720 | in that loyal, faithful, unbreakable, affectionate love,

00:58:06.740 | and he relents concerning evil,

00:58:09.200 | and he does it right here, yet again,

00:58:11.800 | not just to the Ninevites, but to his servants.

00:58:14.640 | Aren't you grateful that God doesn't smush you out

00:58:19.560 | when you think wrong and act wrong?

00:58:22.460 | He's merciful even to his prophet

00:58:26.680 | and proves that Jonah knew God truly as God is.

00:58:34.080 | I marvel at this because God is still with Jonah.

00:58:37.140 | He's not left him.

00:58:38.880 | He still teaches Jonah.

00:58:40.160 | He still converses with Jonah.

00:58:41.760 | He's teaching Jonah about grace

00:58:44.320 | and simultaneously extending grace to Jonah

00:58:47.080 | as he builds his tantrum tent.

00:58:49.220 | And he hopes to see God rain fire in the city.

00:58:53.040 | The verbs in verse five are pluperfect.

00:58:55.840 | It reads like this, "Jonah had gone out of the city

00:58:58.360 | "and had made a booth for himself there."

00:59:03.920 | Sulking in his hut.

00:59:05.200 | And maybe, somebody asked me this question once.

00:59:09.920 | Preaching the book of Jonah at a retreat,

00:59:11.400 | and they said, "How could you say that Jonah,

00:59:13.520 | "how could you say that Jonah was repentant

00:59:17.760 | "in the belly of the whale,

00:59:19.720 | "when in chapter four, he acts like this?"

00:59:22.960 | And I thought it was a good question,

00:59:26.520 | but it wasn't a difficult question for me

00:59:30.880 | 'cause sometimes I act like this.

00:59:32.980 | All the Christian life is repentance.

00:59:37.980 | And after you repent, usually you have to repent some more.

00:59:45.500 | Brian Estelle says it this way.

00:59:49.380 | He says, "Jonah shows himself to be a man,

00:59:52.340 | "still in human skin, prone to wander,

00:59:56.700 | "and then inclined to give in to anger, despair,

01:00:00.020 | "and self-justification in spite of his transformation

01:00:04.580 | "in the fish."

01:00:05.940 | Be careful, brothers.

01:00:10.580 | None of us are ever done growing, done learning.

01:00:15.020 | We may have finished two years

01:00:17.700 | in the Tyrenaeus's lecture hall.

01:00:20.540 | I don't think that's how you say it.

01:00:22.220 | But we still need seminary.

01:00:25.460 | We don't graduate from this one,

01:00:28.460 | not until life is through.

01:00:30.740 | And the lordship of Christ doesn't mean

01:00:32.460 | his followers are sinless or perfect.

01:00:35.260 | That's not what lordship means.

01:00:37.420 | It means that they're in a master class of repentance.

01:00:41.780 | That's why Luther said, "All of life is repentance."

01:00:46.700 | And Jonah, the repentant believer,

01:00:48.220 | the pouting prophet, is throwing a hot fit,

01:00:50.740 | builds his little hut out of whatever material

01:00:52.740 | he could find in the east desert outside of Nineveh,

01:00:55.740 | just images of Eden happening there

01:00:59.420 | as he expels himself from God's blessing.

01:01:03.580 | You imagine this little meager shelter,

01:01:06.740 | and God takes occasion to do extreme home makeover

01:01:10.020 | and upgrades Jonah's little villa.

01:01:13.780 | And it's all a tutorial on grace.

01:01:17.180 | God appoints a plant,

01:01:18.500 | and this is all the meticulous sovereignty of God

01:01:21.100 | and Jonah appointing fish and appointing winds,

01:01:23.700 | and commentators get real scientific.

01:01:26.420 | Is it a rinses plant or a castor oil plant?

01:01:29.300 | It's called a kikion plant.

01:01:31.220 | Sinclair Ferguson calls it kiki.

01:01:33.180 | Because it was so precious to Jonah.

01:01:37.420 | It gave him shade.

01:01:38.420 | He loved it.

01:01:39.260 | It felt good.

01:01:41.100 | This is a reminder that there are many prophets

01:01:43.660 | in God's economy who are bald.

01:01:47.460 | (congregation laughing)

01:01:52.740 | I mean, otherwise it wouldn't have scorched his head

01:01:54.860 | if he had good hair.

01:01:56.780 | I don't think.

01:01:58.660 | And he's loving the shade in this plant.

01:02:07.700 | The verb matah, used for the fish,

01:02:12.500 | used for a plant, used to appoint the wind.

01:02:14.700 | It's the sovereignty of God in this whole thing.

01:02:18.700 | And I love how God constantly drives his people back

01:02:23.460 | to the big book of creation,

01:02:26.780 | the natural side of theology,

01:02:31.500 | the general revelation of God.

01:02:34.700 | He wants his people and his ministers saturated

01:02:37.700 | in this world that God made.

01:02:40.300 | There's something that's a universal experience here

01:02:44.380 | to be engaged with the beauty of creation in this moment,

01:02:47.380 | and God has shown us a panoply of this in Jonah

01:02:51.540 | with the ocean and the seafaring,

01:02:55.220 | and now this strange supernatural plant that grows up

01:02:59.300 | and forms some beautiful covering for Jonah's shade

01:03:02.740 | and drops the temperature for him,

01:03:04.780 | makes it nice and in comfort.

01:03:07.820 | There's intervention here.

01:03:10.340 | You couldn't have the book of Jonah

01:03:11.980 | without God's employment of his creation.

01:03:15.020 | You couldn't have the message of Job

01:03:17.460 | without the theology of zoology

01:03:20.340 | that God employs for his believers

01:03:22.820 | to hear something from his big book that he made

01:03:26.380 | to remind us that he is sovereign over creation,

01:03:30.380 | and this is what Jonah needed in this moment,

01:03:33.740 | and his anger is a parable from the world,

01:03:36.580 | 'cause Jonah isn't reading his Bible right now, I promise.

01:03:41.220 | And so he's out there in God's creation,

01:03:46.220 | part of the natural world.

01:03:49.300 | I love that.

01:03:50.140 | I love to read missionary biographies.

01:03:55.140 | John G. Patton, missionary hero,

01:03:58.420 | great missionary in the New Hebrides.

01:04:00.260 | He's the guy who was warned about,

01:04:03.740 | you'll be eaten by cannibals, the old man told him

01:04:06.380 | from the Presbyterian mission board,

01:04:08.940 | he responds with, "Mr. Dixon, we're all gonna be eaten

01:04:11.700 | "by worms, you first, 'cause you're old."

01:04:14.060 | That's a paraphrase.

01:04:15.100 | 48 years after the first missionaries were killed

01:04:25.580 | in the New Hebrides, John Patton would land on those islands

01:04:29.340 | and hundreds and hundreds of natives

01:04:31.660 | would be converted to Christ.

01:04:33.740 | His ministry there was so difficult.

01:04:35.580 | His wife died, he remarried.

01:04:38.300 | It's just an incredible story.

01:04:40.900 | And in his biography, you find so much

01:04:43.940 | of that creational theology.

01:04:46.100 | The island he ministered on for all those years

01:04:49.820 | was soundly converted, it was called Ináhuac.

01:04:52.700 | Ináhuac came to see the effect of Christianity.

01:04:55.460 | And islanders from an adjacent island, Fortuna,

01:04:58.180 | came to see what Christianity looked like in Ináhuac,

01:05:01.140 | where he'd been ministering.

01:05:02.980 | And he tells this story to brag on one of his preachers

01:05:06.540 | that he trained a native guy.

01:05:08.860 | It's a beautiful story, I'll read you just a piece of it.

01:05:11.900 | The day spring brought a large deputation from Fortuna,

01:05:15.260 | the other island not converted yet,

01:05:16.700 | to see for themselves the change

01:05:18.180 | which the gospel had produced on Ináhuac.

01:05:20.820 | On Sabbath, the missionaries had conducted

01:05:22.740 | the usual public worship.

01:05:24.220 | Some of the leading Ináhuans addressed the Fortunas

01:05:26.860 | as visitors and said to them, "Men of Fortuna,

01:05:29.780 | "you have come to see what the gospel has done for us."

01:05:36.420 | They called Patton Missy, missionary, Missy.

01:05:39.740 | "You have come to see what the gospel has done for Ináhuac.

01:05:44.880 | "It is Jehovah, living God, that has made all this change.

01:05:47.920 | "As heathens, we quarreled and killed and ate each other.

01:05:51.460 | "We had no peace and no joy in heart or house,

01:05:54.280 | "in the villages or in lands,

01:05:55.980 | "but we now live as brethren

01:05:57.820 | "and have happiness in all these things."

01:06:00.500 | When you go back to Fortuna and they ask you,

01:06:02.180 | "What is Christianity?"

01:06:03.780 | You'll have to reply, "It is that which changed the people

01:06:06.660 | "of Ináhuac," but they will still say,

01:06:10.020 | "What is it?"

01:06:10.860 | And you won't answer.

01:06:11.860 | It's what that which has given them clothing

01:06:14.140 | and blankets and knives and axes and fish hooks

01:06:16.660 | and many other useful things.

01:06:18.420 | It is that which has led them to give up fighting

01:06:20.400 | and to live together as friends,

01:06:21.940 | but they will ask you, "What is it like?"

01:06:23.700 | And you'll have to tell them, "Alas, you cannot explain it.

01:06:26.360 | "You've only seen its workings, not itself,

01:06:28.340 | "that no one can tell what Christianity is,

01:06:30.320 | "but the man that loves Jesus, the invisible master,"

01:06:33.140 | and walks with him and tries to please him.

01:06:35.340 | "Now you people of Fortuna, you think that you don't dance

01:06:38.420 | "and you think that if you don't dance and sing

01:06:40.500 | "and pray to your gods, you will have no crops."

01:06:43.900 | It's about to get apologetic, hold on.

01:06:45.820 | "You think you'll have no crops if you don't pray

01:06:49.940 | "and sing and dance to your gods.

01:06:51.500 | "We once did so too, sacrificing and doing much abomination

01:06:55.140 | "to our gods for weeks before planting season every year,

01:06:58.880 | "but we saw our missy," missionary,

01:07:01.960 | "only praying to the invisible Jehovah

01:07:04.640 | "and planting his yams.

01:07:07.280 | "And they grew fairer than ours.

01:07:13.040 | "You are weak every year before your hard work

01:07:16.860 | "begins in the fields with your wild and bad conduct

01:07:19.540 | "to please your gods, but we are strong for our work

01:07:22.140 | "for we pray to Jehovah and he gives us quiet rest

01:07:25.020 | "instead of wild dancing and it helps us

01:07:27.180 | "to be happy in our toils.

01:07:28.740 | "Since we followed Missy's example,

01:07:30.640 | "Jehovah has given to us a large and beautiful crop

01:07:33.440 | "and we now know that he gives us all our blessings."

01:07:36.060 | And then they turned to John Patton

01:07:38.220 | and this native preacher says to him,

01:07:42.460 | "Have you the large yam we presented to you?

01:07:45.300 | "Would you not think it well to send it back

01:07:50.200 | "with these men of Fortuna to let their people

01:07:52.660 | "see the yams which Jehovah grows for us

01:07:55.860 | "in answer to prayer?"

01:07:57.780 | Jehovah is the only God who can grow yams like that.

01:08:02.040 | Yam apologetics, sweet potato theology.

01:08:09.820 | It's a simple reminder that our God is God

01:08:14.140 | over all of nature, winds and waves and storms

01:08:18.420 | and sea creatures and sailors and Ninevites

01:08:21.020 | and the poor and a king and a vine and a worm

01:08:24.800 | and wind and yams and you, pastor,

01:08:28.780 | are part of God's creation.

01:08:30.280 | And when we put ourselves in the realm we belong,

01:08:35.580 | little, little lower than the angels,

01:08:39.200 | made in the likeness and image of God,

01:08:42.180 | we can learn so much about our foolish perspective

01:08:46.460 | when we think ourselves more than creatures.

01:08:49.260 | Thomas Brooks wrote that sweet message on assurance

01:08:54.460 | called "Heaven on Earth" and he has a list of arguments

01:08:57.260 | about assurance that I've used ministering

01:08:58.900 | to college students a bunch of times.

01:09:00.940 | My favorite one is based on the Great Commission

01:09:03.860 | and general revelation.

01:09:05.400 | He reminds the person wondering if they're truly saved

01:09:09.420 | that Jesus said, "Preach the gospel to all creatures,"

01:09:14.260 | Matthew 28, and his question is this,

01:09:17.400 | "Brother, are you among the rank of creatures?"

01:09:23.860 | That's a good one.

01:09:25.280 | Do you qualify for that when the gospel's for you?

01:09:30.840 | Only Yahweh can grow yams like that.

01:09:34.660 | Only Yahweh can grow a plant like this

01:09:36.780 | to demonstrate the sovereign nature of God's pure grace.

01:09:41.780 | And when you see your entire life as grace,

01:09:46.420 | that everything that you have is owed to God,

01:09:49.380 | that you are part of God's demonstrating his glory,

01:09:52.860 | in creation, he gives Jonah this object lesson

01:09:57.060 | that should be real to every pastor

01:09:59.580 | who needs to leave his study for a few minutes

01:10:02.500 | and go outside and look at the sky.

01:10:05.900 | Not directly at the sun, but look at the sky.

01:10:08.140 | And you'll receive from God a gift

01:10:13.140 | of being part of his wonderful creation.

01:10:15.760 | And this plant grows up and Jonah's mad

01:10:22.420 | when it dies.

01:10:23.260 | So mad, he demands death yet again.

01:10:29.060 | He's God appoints that scorching wind

01:10:30.940 | and the sun beats down on Jonah's bald head

01:10:33.380 | and he becomes faint and begs with his soul to die.

01:10:36.540 | Better to me is death than life.

01:10:39.940 | One commentator says this,

01:10:42.860 | "He does not object to the divine compassion

01:10:44.860 | "and salvation directed to those like himself,

01:10:47.540 | "but when it's also effective for the wicked,

01:10:49.300 | "he cannot abide it.

01:10:51.200 | "Yet he is unwilling to live without his old belief

01:10:53.380 | "and because he refuses to let Yahweh

01:10:55.020 | "transform his anger into love,

01:10:57.140 | "his pity for plants into the pity for people,

01:11:00.420 | "his compassion of what the object of divine mercy

01:11:03.140 | "ought to be into what Yahweh has shown him

01:11:05.860 | "it actually is, he desperately longs to die."

01:11:09.340 | And that's because Jonah didn't understand grace.

01:11:13.340 | Grace says that everything we have is from God,

01:11:17.820 | not from our earnings, not from our dessert.

01:11:21.340 | We have what we have because of the incredible grace of God

01:11:26.220 | and that includes oxygen and shade and salvation.

01:11:30.640 | The Lord preserves sailors in Jonah

01:11:35.780 | and then he destroys the plant.

01:11:39.260 | Emphatic pronouns in verse 10 and 11,

01:11:42.860 | the Lord said, "You had compassion on the plant

01:11:45.300 | "for which you did not work

01:11:47.140 | "and which you did not cause to grow.

01:11:49.140 | "It came up overnight and perished overnight."

01:11:51.900 | And now we see finally the challenge in God's question.

01:11:55.820 | He makes one of these call Yomer arguments,

01:12:01.700 | these heavy to light arguments.

01:12:03.580 | God's trying to do a lesser to a greater here.

01:12:06.860 | You have compassion on photosynthesis and chlorophyll,

01:12:10.060 | stems and leaves rather than on a people.

01:12:14.780 | And he's pressing Jonah towards this concluding question,

01:12:18.020 | this logical inference, a contrast of value, a comparison.

01:12:23.020 | And all the emphasis is on God's freedom

01:12:27.020 | to act in compassion.

01:12:28.880 | His classroom is a classroom of grace.

01:12:32.780 | His character is marked by mercy.

01:12:35.700 | And now the challenge is,

01:12:37.580 | how are you going to respond to this reality?

01:12:43.100 | Is Jonah gonna keep haystacking at this city

01:12:45.980 | until it finally ceases to exist?

01:12:49.300 | Or is he going to see the heart of God

01:12:55.220 | for his creation that has inherent dignity

01:13:00.500 | because they're made in his likeness and image?

01:13:02.860 | And you have a theological Copernican revolution

01:13:08.100 | and recognize that he's not the center of this,

01:13:10.380 | but that God is, and he needs to fix his eyes

01:13:13.500 | on the glory of God.

01:13:14.700 | And God is doing whatever he pleases in this world.

01:13:17.580 | He's having mercy on whom he'll have mercy.

01:13:20.040 | This is the exact truth that Paul wrestles with

01:13:23.980 | in Romans 9 through 11.

01:13:25.460 | He'll be gracious to him, he'll be gracious.

01:13:28.300 | He'll show compassion to him, he'll show compassion.

01:13:31.700 | Jonah, can you get in line?

01:13:33.140 | Grace insists on the freedom of God

01:13:36.420 | to do what he wills to do,

01:13:37.820 | and that's why it's called sovereign grace.

01:13:40.020 | God is a God of compassion, and we see it here in Jonah,

01:13:43.940 | but Jonah doesn't see it yet.

01:13:45.620 | Two things to conclude here.

01:13:52.060 | One, this isn't the end of the story.

01:13:57.720 | Not for this prophet from a region

01:14:07.260 | that would come back into focus.

01:14:08.860 | You see, there's another young man

01:14:12.780 | who will grow up in the same region.

01:14:16.140 | It'll be called Galilee.

01:14:17.380 | He'll never sin, he'll never rebel.

01:14:21.500 | He'll be a spokesman on behalf of God as well.

01:14:24.380 | And the people that see this young man

01:14:27.860 | who takes on the name of that great leader

01:14:30.500 | that followed Moses, Yeshua,

01:14:32.560 | they'll see in Jesus the tremendous authority

01:14:36.380 | as he speaks on behalf of God.

01:14:37.940 | And he too will cry out for people to repent,

01:14:41.620 | much like his forerunner Jonah did.

01:14:43.380 | And two times in the lips of the Lord,

01:14:45.500 | he'll reference Jonah in his tomb of death

01:14:50.500 | as a prophecy of his work to come.

01:14:54.940 | And the people who will see this Galilean

01:14:57.860 | will see something they never saw in Jonah

01:14:59.660 | because the compassion of God

01:15:01.540 | is seen most clearly in his son.

01:15:04.140 | "He will personify," Jonah 2.9,

01:15:06.180 | "salvation comes from the Lord."

01:15:08.020 | And the one who brought salvation

01:15:09.940 | also brings with him tremendous compassion

01:15:12.500 | as he stretches out his hands and touches people

01:15:15.220 | and says like, "I am willing to be cleansed."

01:15:19.220 | As he reaches out and ministers to complete social pariahs,

01:15:25.820 | touching the untouchable, including these outsiders,

01:15:30.820 | saving sinners and vile tax collectors.

01:15:34.960 | People would throw rocks at lepers

01:15:39.460 | and tell them to stay away.

01:15:41.540 | And Jesus would move freely among them

01:15:43.420 | in compassion to heal them.

01:15:46.200 | He'd look at vast crowds of people,

01:15:47.780 | the son of man would, and he would see all these people,

01:15:50.820 | Matthew 14, 14, and Jesus felt compassion for them

01:15:54.540 | because they were distressed

01:15:56.140 | and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

01:15:59.660 | And Jesus would go to areas that were unclean,

01:16:02.060 | like Gennesaret, and find a demonic man

01:16:04.580 | and change him from the inside out

01:16:06.940 | and commission him to go with compassion

01:16:09.460 | on the 10 Gentile cities.

01:16:11.660 | And Jesus would find a widow that needed healing

01:16:14.380 | just like Elijah did way back when.

01:16:17.260 | And Jesus would extend mercy to a dying child

01:16:20.460 | and restore that precious one to the family.

01:16:23.420 | And Jesus would touch the eyes of the blind

01:16:26.060 | and they would immediately regain their sight.

01:16:28.100 | And he would sit up on that hill overlooking Jerusalem

01:16:30.980 | and the son of man would weep and he would say,

01:16:33.580 | "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets

01:16:36.100 | "and stones those who sent her?

01:16:38.220 | "How often I wanted to gather your children together

01:16:41.300 | "like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings

01:16:43.740 | "and you are unwilling."

01:16:45.180 | The magnificent compassion throughout the ministry of Jesus

01:16:49.460 | is brought into focus as he is a prophet

01:16:52.220 | from this same place that Jonah was.

01:16:55.860 | Feeling compassion on large crowds preaching the gospel

01:17:00.580 | to lost people in their sins.

01:17:03.180 | And the Bible tells us that Jesus expressed continually

01:17:06.660 | the compassion of God, both in emotion and in action.

01:17:10.540 | And God's love and his deep display is impacted

01:17:14.260 | as God sends his son to a lost world.

01:17:16.620 | First to the lost sheep of Israel,

01:17:18.580 | and then as he commissions his followers,

01:17:20.740 | that mission expands far beyond the borders

01:17:23.460 | from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria,

01:17:26.380 | to the uttermost parts of the earth.

01:17:27.740 | And all of that is reminding us

01:17:29.340 | that God is a God of compassion.

01:17:31.780 | There is no missionary endeavor to any unreached people

01:17:35.020 | that goes beyond God's compassion,

01:17:37.300 | God's massive capacity for compassion,

01:17:40.180 | because God is more merciful than you think he is.

01:17:43.900 | He's more gracious than you think he is.

01:17:46.340 | And if you really understood the holiness of God

01:17:48.740 | and the sinful depravity of our own hearts,

01:17:50.980 | you would begin to recognize the depth of God's mercy

01:17:53.900 | that is far beyond our comprehension.

01:17:56.420 | When is God too compassionate for your tastes?

01:18:01.300 | Are there people or nations

01:18:02.820 | that you believe to be beyond his mercy?

01:18:05.000 | Homosexuals, ISIS, liberals.

01:18:09.660 | How do we limit God's compassion?

01:18:11.700 | Have we confused the doctrine of election for elitism?

01:18:16.740 | Because God's compassion is stunning,

01:18:18.900 | and he will stun you with it.

01:18:20.540 | His mercy is overwhelming, and Jonah was overwhelmed by it.

01:18:25.380 | And as Jesus's ministry unfolded,

01:18:27.860 | the compassion of God is seen most clearly

01:18:30.980 | on the cross of Christ as he forgave those who crucified him

01:18:34.860 | and knew that his disciples would take the message

01:18:37.500 | of the one who gave his life

01:18:38.940 | for the sins of all who would believe in their place.

01:18:42.860 | Don't question the character of God

01:18:44.500 | because his justice is clearly displayed

01:18:47.060 | with his sovereignty on the cross of Christ,

01:18:49.940 | a place of enormous and extraordinary

01:18:52.020 | and eternally lasting compassion.

01:18:54.560 | And secondly, without a scribal note to guide us

01:19:00.260 | at the end of Jonah, what happened to Jonah?

01:19:03.660 | Did Jonah get it?

01:19:05.740 | I think he did.

01:19:08.500 | Because where else in the world

01:19:11.300 | did we get the book of Jonah from?

01:19:13.060 | I think Jonah wrote it.

01:19:18.340 | I think the Worm wrote it.

01:19:19.700 | Who else was on that blistering, hot field that day?

01:19:27.220 | And I think something happened after this confrontation.

01:19:32.340 | I think Jonah had to tell his story.

01:19:34.260 | And I think that all biblical writers, he told it straight.

01:19:39.100 | He told it honest, he penned it right.

01:19:41.700 | I think Jonah came around.

01:19:43.200 | And if you've ever questioned the character of God

01:19:46.540 | and it's outworking in your life and ministry,

01:19:48.380 | his justice, his sovereign plan,

01:19:50.300 | if you've ever thought God wasn't there,

01:19:52.220 | that he hadn't been generous or he wasn't good,

01:19:55.380 | ground your faith in the reality

01:19:57.580 | that we've learned from this book.

01:19:59.260 | Become a willing prophet or teacher.

01:20:03.460 | Once you're persuaded, Calvin says,

01:20:05.380 | that God truly is merciful.

01:20:08.540 | And I think Jonah became persuaded that God is merciful.

01:20:11.900 | And I think that's why he wrote this book.

01:20:14.020 | And I think the unbreakable logic of God

01:20:17.460 | lined Jonah's heart to God's heart.

01:20:20.420 | And I think if you pursue that same heart of God

01:20:24.420 | and compassion, it can happen in your life and ministry too.

01:20:27.840 | One missionary realized this named J. Verkeel

01:20:33.740 | writing in a book called The Biblical Foundation

01:20:35.780 | of the Worldwide Missions Mandate.

01:20:38.060 | He learned something from Jonah

01:20:39.260 | and he comments on this final line.

01:20:43.140 | And Jonah stalked to his shaded seat

01:20:46.340 | and waited for God to come around to his way of thinking.

01:20:52.260 | And God is still waiting for a host of Jonah's

01:20:57.380 | in their comfortable houses

01:21:00.220 | to come around to his way of loving.

01:21:04.660 | Go into all the world and preach the gospel.

01:21:10.500 | Show them the compassion and love of God in Christ.

01:21:13.820 | And never forget that God saves wicked people like us.

01:21:18.820 | Can we trust that God is doing it

01:21:22.020 | when we don't understand what he's up to?

01:21:25.660 | Can we sit in his classroom as he shapes us and works on us?

01:21:28.980 | And can we have a heart become like the heart of our Lord,

01:21:34.020 | a heart that loves sinners?

01:21:37.780 | Have compassion on the lost and prove it.

01:21:41.300 | Tell them about Jesus.

01:21:43.380 | Father, thank you for sending Christ to be a blessing

01:21:46.820 | to all the people of the earth.

01:21:48.460 | Remove our narrowness, our rigidness, our resistance.

01:21:52.260 | Make us eager to see the unfolding

01:21:54.940 | of your compassion to lost people.

01:21:57.380 | We thank you, God, for the message of Jonah,

01:21:59.860 | a message that's unforgettable

01:22:01.420 | because it puts on us your extraordinary compassion.

01:22:05.740 | In Jesus' name, amen.

01:22:08.020 | (water trickling)

01:22:10.860 | (water trickling)

01:22:13.700 | (water trickling)

01:22:16.540 | you

Lessons from a Rebellious Missionary - Austin Duncan